A record number of nominees have been announced for this year’s ASB Northland Secondary School Sports Awards, which celebrate outstanding sporting achievements of Northland’s student athletes.

This year’s awards draw from a record number of 335 nominations – made up of 177 individual sports people and six teams – representing 22 Northland secondary schools.

The awards night on October 29 will acknowledge the outstanding sporting achievements of local students in official secondary school sports such as football and squash.

The awards also recognise achievements in sporting codes not offered at a secondary school level, such as powerlifting and ultimate frisbee. A total of 47 sporting codes will be represented.

There will be special awards for male and female all-rounder and area school students as well as team of the year. Two awards for ASB Excellence, male and female, will be presented to code winners deemed to have the highest sporting achievement in a sport not offered at secondary school level.

The ASB Sportswoman of the Year and Sportsman of the Year will again be named from all code winners in recognised secondary school sport.

Sport Northland Regional Sports Director, Robyn Richards is delighted with the support from schools for the event. “We never really expected to get more nominations than last year. It just goes to show how much sport is valued in our Northland schools,” Richards says.

In an attempt to inspire Northland youth, Richards has also been busy inviting former Northland sporting students to attend the dinner and sit with current students from their old school.

“Unfortunately a lot of our high profile athletes, such as our Northland Black Sticks, are busy with playing commitments or are overseas at the time of the awards. However I do have former students coming from Kamo HS, Pompallier Catholic College, Kerikeri HS, Northland College, Tauraroa Area School, Kaitaia College, Otamatea HS, Bay of Islands College, Dargaville HS and Whangarei Boys’ HS.”

ASB Northland Regional Manager Glen Hardham is, once again, looking forward to attending the ASB Northland Secondary School Awards at the end of the month.

“Every year I am impressed by the large number of elite athletes recognised at the ASB Northland Secondary School Awards, many of whom are regional, national and international champions. The evening is an opportunity to highlight and acknowledge the great work undertaken by schools and the local sporting community in fostering and developing sporting talent in our region’s youth.

“ASB has supported Sport Northland and the ASB Northland Secondary School Sports Awards for more than 20 years - a relationship that ASB, the team in Northland and I remain very proud of and committed to. At its core, ASB’s support of the awards aims to help young Northlanders reach their full potential and seamlessly aligns with ASB’s support of our region’s youth through various youth banking and financial literacy initiatives.”

ASB is offering this year’s winners to a ‘performance pathway’ experience in early December. More details will be announced at the awards ceremony.

The awards evening will take place in the ASB Stadium on Thursday October 29. Finalists and their support people will be able to buy tickets from Sport Northland reception from October 12. An online system will also be available for ticket purchases at www.sportnorthland.co.nz. All event enquiries in regard to the event should be made to Robyn Richards at Sport Northland.

Finalists for the ASB Secondary Schools Sports Awards have been announced ... CLICK HERE